The only catch is that a person, company or government wanting to secure such a domain-name suffix will need to fork out the princely sum of $185,000 to make their application and this will put such an initiative beyond the budgets of many SME's.

This however is not the end of the cost. For having secured the domain, there is then an annual fee to Icann of about $25,000, among other costs such as hosting and domain management

Registering a new extension for your company is an excellent branding idea but the cost of doing so and maintaining it will be prohibitive for most.

So the Dot.Com party is finally a thing of the past and we have entered (to quote the WSJ) the age of Dot. Anything.

Will this development make it easier for the consumer, or more difficult as they search through an ever expanding array of domains for the company or service that they seek?

Through a special agreement with more than 800 newspapers worldwide, the Newseum displays these front pages each day on its website. The front pages are in their original and unedited form and are viewable in either the Flash or Bing Beta versions. Personally I prefer the latter (see below) as the pop-up windows are easier to navigate.